At 1 PM, 14th of June, Moroccan police stopped a peaceful demonstration in the Hay Maatalah district in El Aaiun, Western Sahara.

According to the Sahrawi organisation CODESA, the demonstrators carried Western Sahara flags, shouting slogans for the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination.

After the police had blocked all the entrances to the quarter where the demonstration took place, they brutally stopped the Sahrawis.

9 demonstrators were detained, 11 are reported beaten, while 4 hourses have been ransacked.

The demonstration came as a reaction to the sentences against 9 Sahrawi students who were judged to 8 months of prison earlier this week. The students were sentenced after having demonstrated at a university in Rabat.

Since 1975, three quarters of the territory of Western Sahara has been occupied by Morocco. A majority of the population is still living in refugee camps in Algeria. Those who remained in their homeland are subjected to serious harassment from the Moroccan occupiers. For more than 40 years the Sahrawis have been waiting for the fullfilment of their legitimate right to self-determination.

Give a donation!
Support the Support Committee. Help us work for the Sahrawi people's struggle for self-determination. Give a donation here.